Page 58 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

Wynvail frowned, flicking his wrist at a blur of movement to our right. A woman crashed to the ground with a scream of agony. Ten others matched her scream, white light tearing through them. “Why? You’re my fucking brother. What kind of question is why?”

I shook my head, a tight sickness in my stomach. This just proved how good a person Wynvail was; he hated me but still saved me.

“Thank you,” I said, choking back all the other words that wanted to pour out.

“Don’t be stupid, you don’t have to thank me.” He gave me a worried look, snapping a bolt of light at another enemy; they dropped with a scream.

I twisted away when a ripple of warning went down one of my shadows, a gasp forced from me when I saw through the film of darkness as Emlyn crashed to his knees in the mud and Tali attacked Kai.

“Stay safe,” I breathed to Wynvail and jumped through another shadow, unleashing myself on the enormous red panda before she could slice her vicious claws across Kai’s throat. His chest was already bleeding, leather and skin parted in two deep stripes.

“Not Tali,” Kai hissed, swinging his arm around in a powerful arc. The force of his magic hit me, and I staggered, the thrum of power making the cuts on my hands, my face, and my arms sting. I was covered in mud and blood like Kai, and I knew I had the same bright, frantic light in my eyes. “It’s not her.”

Kai had never given me a reason to doubt him, and I trusted him with my life. So I struggled through the strain on my power and called up a storm of shadow, surrounding Tali as she struck out with her claws again. The razor edges missed Kai, but I wasn’t so lucky. I flinched, biting back a shout at the spike of blinding pain, a slice ripped through my shoulder. It matched all the others pouring blood down my body. I hadn’t been fatally wounded, but my whole body pulsed with stinging, gnawing pain.

Gritting my teeth, I dropped a blanket of protective shadow around Emlyn, relief weakening my knees when warmth met the darkness—and a heartbeat. Alive. He was alive.

Tali fought against my shadows, a deep, chilling sound of warning in her throat.

“It’s not her,” Kai panted, alert for more attacks. We stood in the middle of the titan’s most dangerous army—those he’d had locked in the prisons, those we weren’t able to get out in time. Only Kai’s swarm of snakes and my fragile shadow kept them at bay, and that would only work for so long against gods and titans.

“Are you sure?” I asked, breathing faster. “Absolutely certain?”

Kai hesitated. It was all the opening Tali needed to surge forward and shred my magic with claws of pure silver. I faltered back with a cry, pain cutting me deep inside where my magic came from, a far worse agony than any cut on my body. It was the same pain I felt when the titan touched my power, when he ripped out a swath of magic.

I stumbled, breathing faster, memories crowding my mind. My foot hit Emlyn’s leg hard enough to rip my balance from me, and a chill swept my body as I fell, vulnerable. An obvious target. I was going to die here. Hated and useless.

I wrapped myself in shadow, wrenching myself back to my feet with a scream of effort, my shadows roaring a warning—

The whole army seemed to pause, seemed to freeze in place. For a chilling moment I thought it was the titan’s magic slowing time to a crawl, but no. It was shock that rendered them silent; people turned in place, all looking to the same place across the bloody field.

“He’s gone,” someone said beside me. Russ, Queen Lili’s tall, golden-haired lover, his glasses splattered with blood, clothes streaked with mud and gore.

It took a moment for his words to compute, for the sheer disbelief to hit.

I stared at the empty space where the titan had stood, where my mate had battled him. Shock held me in place, like it did everyone else, a hush of shock falling over even the titan’s living allies. Beyond us, the shadow soldiers still fought like robots without minds of their own, but here among his worst army, it was horribly still.

Relief came on the heels of shock. He’s gone. Thank gods, he’s gone.

But he needed to die. We needed to kill him. This needed to be over.

A blood-chilling roar came from the midst of the shadow army, and I shuddered even knowing it was my brother, even knowing he’d never hurt me. But Harvey hated me, resented me. He would never forgive me for the secret he’d kept. And yet, I knew he’d never turn the ruthless power of Harveil upon me.

Another answered that roar, shockingly similar. Moonlight split the dark sky and I staggered back, power blasting from that column of light like wind, like a ripple of warning.

It took me a moment to understand why. Took a moment for my blood to turn to ice.

I staggered back, shaking my head. No. No.

Lili flew, her dark wings cutting powerfully through the air, the halo shining at her brow. But Haley was gone. I couldn’t see my mate anywhere.

“He took her,” I gasped, struggling to breathe, to see, to think. The battlefield tilted and swam.

He took her.

He’d force her to her knees and cut her apart. He’d make her scream for mercy and take sick pleasure in denying it. Was Andryas Revairs already waiting to cleave her beautiful wings from her back and hang them above mine?

“He took her,” I whispered over and over, falling apart in the middle of a battlefield. I didn’t care who saw, didn’t care who took advantage of my weakness to wound me. Nothing could hurt more than the truth. “He took her.”

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